Heat and Rook patiently waited out another round of Olivia Conklin’s sobs in
the living room of the airy, seashore-themed two-bedroom that would never feel the
same to her. The apartment, in a complex of neat gray clapboards with bright white
trim, sat waterside next to City Island’s sailing school in the Bronx. In the
distance beyond the balcony, Long Island shimmered under a spring sun. The view back
at them from Great Neck might have been Jay Gatsby’s when he contemplated the green
light shining across the water. But symbols of brightness, beauty, and optimism had
no place in that room. It should have been raining.
For Olivia Conklin, still wearing the crumpled business suit after her night flight
home from a software training seminar in Orlando, the only solace was that her
husband had been shot. When that’s the good news, it’s all downhill.
Even though Heat despised this part of the job, it was the part she was best at. She
connected, having once been in a similar chair filling Kleenex herself. So she
navigated the interview gently, yet alert for signs of guilt, lies, and
inconsistencies. Unfortunately spouses proved worthy suspects. With delicacy, she
probed the marriage, money, vices, mental health, and hints of infidelity.
“Roy only had one mistress,” she said. “His job. He was so dedicated. I know some
people hear civil servant and think laziness. Not my Roy. He never left his work at
the office. He took public health personally. He called them his restaurants and
never wanted a sickness on his watch.”
All this only confirmed the research Heat’s team had done so far. Roy Conklin’s
finances were in line with his pay grade. Roach’s restaurant checks revealed a man
consistently called tough but fair. Neither his wife nor his colleagues knew him to
have any enemies, recent erratic behavior, or new people in his life.
“It just makes no sense,” said Olivia Conklin. Then the new widow wailed out the
single, heart-crushed word Nikki heard from all grievers after the sudden theft of a
life. That word was the beacon that guided Detective Heat in her work: “Why?”
As Heat and Rook walked back to her car, past the tidy row of Sunfish trailered in
the sailing school parking lot, Nikki’s gaze roamed out to the glistening open
water. She imagined the smart pop of Dacron as wind filled her sail and she tacked
out into Long Island Sound. Then she pictured Roy Conklin standing right there his
last living day and wondered if he’d savored that view or if his heart had felt too
heavy with fear or guilt at some horrible secret he kept from his wife—a secret
that got him killed and left her asking why. Or, Nikki speculated, did poor Roy
never see it coming, either? Then her phone rang and yanked Heat into her other
case. Sailing would have to wait. Back to juggling.
The call came from the police in Hastings-on-Hudson, a quaint village about a half
hour upriver from New York City. Hastings only employed two detectives in its small
department, and Heat maintained regular contact with them, checking for sightings of
one of the town’s residents she needed to talk to.
Vaja Nikoladze was just one of numerous people Heat had put feelers out to, all seen
as persons of interest because her mother tutored piano in their households prior to
her murder. Nikoladze, an internationally renowned biochemist who had defected from
the former Soviet Republic of Georgia, had been eliminated as a suspect in her
mother’s case. But since Tyler Wynn frequently booked her mom’s piano jobs as CIA
spy dates, Heat wanted to know if the Georgian expat had had any recent contact with
the fugitive.
But just like the elusive Syrian UN attaché and the other prominent clients Heat had
reached out to, Nikoladze had been unresponsive, leaving Nikki frustrated, waiting
weeks for a chance at contact that could bring a break in that case.